


Eight Nights of Spicer

by NachoSammich



Category: Xiaolin Showdown (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Hanukkah, Illustrated, Jewish Character, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2787125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NachoSammich/pseuds/NachoSammich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Spicer celebrates Hanukkah in his own way: with a heaping spoonful of evil and a little help from his frenemies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night One: Why Can't You Just Use The Door For Once?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Chanukah Fan Fest over [here.](http://antisemitisminfandoms.tumblr.com/tagged/chanukahfanfest) This is a series of drabbles centered around Jack Spicer (and other assorted characters) celebrating Hanukkah in their own way. It will be updated every night of Hanukkah until the 24th.
> 
> The lovely illustration in the first chapter is courtesy of tumblr user [transfiend](http://transfiend.tumblr.com/post/105405817214/what-kind-of-self-respecting-xiaolin-monk-breaks), who is a real mensch.

“Oh, come on! Really? Tonight?” Jack Spicer tossed his hands in the air, exasperated. The four Xiaolin monks standing in the wreckage of his living room’s wall exchanged confused glances before regaining their battle stances. 

“Jack Spicer,” Omi declared, raising one imperious finger, “We are here to retrieve the Shen Gong Wu that you stole–”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don’t you losers know what day it is?” Jack jabbed one angry finger at his oversized blue menorah-studded sweater and another at the kippa perched haphazardly atop his spiky hair.

The monks exchanged another baffled look. “...Dorky hat day?” Raimundo suggested at length.

Jack pointed to his sweater again.

“Tacky sweater day?” Kimiko guessed, wrinkling her nose.

“Wh–” Jack dropped his hand and looked down at his sweater – the cheerful dreidels emblazoned across the chest, the uneven pattern of menorahs covering it front and back, the garish yellow clashing with deep blue and occasionally interrupted with a line of white or silver yarn – and then back to the monks. He scowled. “IT IS NOT TACKY!”

  

“Hate to break it to you, partner, but it kind of is.” Clay tipped the brim of his hat up a bit as he continued, “I ain’t seen a sweater that ugly since my Granny Lily’s last knitting circle social.”

“Where’d you even  _get_  that thing?” Dojo piped up, poking his head out from around Clay’s shoulders. “Did your grandma make it for you or something?” 

“I–no! I got it off...um...evil eBay. It’s an  _evil_  sweater! Full of crime and...um...rebellion.”

“The only crime I see here,” Kimiko said, “is a crime against fashion.”

“Oooooh!” Rai clapped his hands, breaking formation to reach over and give Kimiko a high five. “Omi, I hope you brought the Orb of Tornami, because somebody just got  _burned!”_

Omi looked perplexed, even as he obligingly pulled the Orb of Tornami out of his robes.

“Figure of speech,” Rai said.

“Ohhhh,” said Omi, and tucked the Shen Gong Wu back into its hiding place.

Jack groaned, dropping his head into one hand. “Okay, are you guys going to stand around yakking all day, or are you gonna leave me to light my candles in peace?”

“We will not leave!” Omi declared. “Not until–candles? Why are you lighting candles, Jack Spicer? Is it your birthday?”

Jack groaned again, louder this time. He stomped around the room to the one part of the living room wall that the monks hadn’t demolished. There was a large banner there; half of it had fallen, but the second word of the banner was still clearly visible. Jack pointed to each syllable, enunciating clearly. “CHA. NU. KAH.”

“Ohhhhhh,” the monks said in unison, though Omi still looked confused.

“I can’t believe we didn’t see that before,” Dojo muttered.

“Now will you jerks get  _out of my living room_  already? I gotta clean this mess up before my folks get home.” This said, Jack turned his back to the monks and began picking bits of rubble off the ground, painstakingly picking every little piece up one at a time.

Behind his back, the four monks exchanged an uncomfortable look, and then as one they turned and quietly began shuffling toward the front door. Halfway there, Omi stopped and turned back.

“What about the Shen Gong Wu?” he asked.

“Out!” Jack barked without looking up.

“But–” Omi started. Kimiko came up behind him and grabbed his arm, gently guiding him towards the door.

“We’ll get them later, Omi,” she said as Dojo leaped down from Clay’s shoulders outside and expanded to full size.

Jack continued to pick up pieces of rubble one at a time while the monks climbed aboard their supersized dragon pal. Once he heard the telltale whoosh of Dojo’s takeoff, he straightened up, brushed his pants off, and called in a small platoon of Jackbots to clean up the rest of the mess. There. Seeds of guilt, planted. Served those losers right for crashing his party.

  



	2. Night Two: Glitter Doesn't Go in Latkes

Jack sat at the table in the center of his lab, poring over a stack of blueprints and schemes. Normally he abhored paperwork, even the evil kind, but tonight it was a much-needed break from the storm of snowflakes and decorative glitter in the rooms above him.

The door to his lab opened and slammed shut; startled, Jack accidentally knocked a stack of blueprints off the table. They fluttered to the floor as he watched the stairs, preparing to bolt if needed. 

“Pathetic fleshbag.” Heavy footfalls echoed on the metal stairs, mirroring the tinny quality of their owner’s voice. “How about I take his precious sweater vest and use it to mop up the kitchen grease? That’d show him.”

Jack relaxed, though he remained a little tense as he watched the newcomer descend the stairs. “He got you too, huh?”

Across the room, RoboJack gave him a baleful glare through the glitter in his unkempt polyester-fiber hair. “No,” he deadpanned as he reached up to pry a dreidel-shaped magnet off his forehead, “what would give you that idea?”

“Nice magnets.”

His robotic double’s glare deepened into a scowl as he reached up to remove another of the festive refrigerator magnets covering his face and neck. “Nice  _sweater.”_

Jack looked down at himself and then back up to the disgruntled robot across the room. “What? It’s cold down here!”

“The current temperature in this room,” RoboJack said snottily, “is 23 degrees Celsius.”

“Yeah, see? Cold!”

RoboJack crossed his arms. “That’s 73.4 degrees Fahrenheit.”

There was a long pause.

“...Well, that’s cold to  _me.”_

“Right, right. I keep forgetting that your meatsack body is even more dysfunctional than the average meatsack.” RoboJack uncrossed his arms and returned to the task of removing the magnets one by one, placing them on the table in a small pile. 

A clatter from the general vicinity of the stairs made them both freeze. They exchanged a tense, terrified glance.

The doorknob turned.

“HIDE!” Jack shrieked, and they both dove for shelter. There was a large, mostly empty tool cabinet against the far wall with one door hanging ajar. It was just large enough for them both to squeeze inside.

It was a tight fit.

“Watch it!”

“You watch it, fleshy!”

“Stop jabbing me with your pointy robot elbows!”

“How about  _you_  stop breathing on me with your gross organic breath!”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs put an end to their whispered argument. They both held their breaths, peering anxiously through the crack in the cabinet doors as they scanned the lab for any signs of the intruder.

“Do you see him?” RoboJack asked after a long minute.

“Nah.” Jack pushed the doors open a little more, stuck his head out and looked around. “I think the coast is clear.”

“HEYYY, FELLAS!”

“GYAH!” Jack jumped back and slammed into RoboJack, who lost his footing and fell forward, spilling them both out onto the floor in a tangled heap. Groaning, Jack rolled onto his back and looked up at their beaming, sweater vest-clad assailant. 

“ _Jack,_ ” he muttered. His counterpart’s face lit up.

“Oh good, you’re okay! Those tool cabinets can be  _awfully_  dangerous, you know!” He wagged a reproachful finger. “You shouldn’t be playing around in there!”

“We weren’t playing,” RoboJack said, sitting up and brushing off his sleeves. “We were  _avoiding_  you.”

Good Jack laughed. “Silly! Hanukkah fun  _can’t_  be avoided! It’s like goodness, you know? Just sneaks inside you and bubbles up like a big frothy fountain of holiday cheer!” He hugged himself, rocking back and forth on his feet.

“Right. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go be a frothy fountain somewhere else.” And with that, RoboJack was on his feet and up the stairs, leaving a faint trail of glitter in his wake.

Jack made to follow him, but he’d only just gotten to his feet when his arm was caught and held firmly. He looked to Good Jack, whose eyes were suspiciously misty. “...What?” he said.

“You’re wearing the sweater.”

Jack froze. “I, uh–ULP!” Any protests he might have been forming were abruptly cut off as he was pulled into a tight, rib-crushing hug.

“You’re  _wearing_  the  _sweater!_  Oh, I’m so happy! I  _knew_  you’d like it!” 

“Hey, hey, easy!” Jack protested, prying himself out of the hug. “I’m only wearing it because it’s cold down here! That’s it! Jeez, don’t make it weird.”

“It’s extra warm, you know! I made it with love in every stitch.”

“Yeah, that’s great.” Jack slowly began to back away, edging for the door. Unfortunately for him, his goody-two-shoes counterpart wasn’t so easily shaken.

“Ooh, are you going back upstairs? Oh! You can help me decorate!” Good Jack clapped his hands. “I still have to do the guest bedroom and the master bathroom. You can help me put up the dreidel garlands!”

“Wow, gee, that sounds  _super_  tempting,” Jack said, hiding his wince behind a big fake smile and continuing to back away, “but, you know, I have a  _lot_ of evil on the agenda today and I should  _probably_  get back to it. The world won’t conquer itself, y’know.”

“Oh.” Good Jack deflated for half a moment before drawing himself up and flashing another one of his dazzling grins. “Well, just call me if you need anything! Oh! And I made some latkes if you want any! They’re in the kitchen.”

Jack paused halfway up the stairs. “Latkes?”

“Yeah! They’re made with lots of love and care! The most delicious latkes are the ones that come from your heart, you know!”

Jack considered it for a moment. “...Okay.”

Good Jack lit up like an electric menorah on the eighth night of Hanukkah.

“Just as long as there’s no glitter in them.”

“No glitter! I promise.”

“Fine.” And with that, Jack continued up the stairs and through the door, into the living room where the air was warm and thick with the smell of freshly-cooked latkes.

He kept his sweater on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now you know where Jack's sweater came from


	3. Night Three: Cookies Aren't an Open Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL it's been two years but it's Hanukkah again SO happy third night have some more of this. I've got a little bit of the fourth night written too but we'll see if I actually manage to finish it ahahaha.

Wednesday was a busy day, even by Jack’s _super_ -packed-evil-genius-schedule standards. The only thing that _hadn’t_ gotten in his way was Good Jack, who’d been elbow-deep in cookie batter since 6 AM. Apart from that small mercy, the day had just been one disaster after another.   
  
It’d started as a routine maintenance check for his bots, and then he’d discovered a glitch in their emotion chip programming that was making them extra susceptible to negative emotions (which explained why he’d found a pile of Jackbots sobbing over a cheesy soap opera a few days before), and in the midst of fixing that his jetcar had sprung an oil leak. And then of course RoboJack had to come in while he was elbow-deep in motor oil and make a lot of snotty comments about his technique, and wouldn’t you know it that as soon as he finally managed to kick the jerk out and fix the leak the doorbell rang. 

And his Jackbots couldn’t answer it, because they were all offline, and RoboJack couldn’t answer it because he was off sulking somewhere, and Jack had learned the hard way not to ever let Good Jack answer the door unless he wanted to end up entertaining some stranger in his living room for hours on end.

So he sprinted up the stairs with his arms still splattered with oil and tore through the living room, reaching the door just as Good Jack came prancing out of the kitchen. Jack stuck his tongue out at him and opened the door, only to stop short when he realized just _who_ had come to visit.

“Hello, Jack Spicer!” Omi chirped, bouncing on his toes as his friends shuffled awkwardly behind him. “We are here to–”

 Jack slammed the door in his face.

_"Jack!”_ Good Jack gasped behind him. “Don’t be rude! They’re our _guests!”_

“What, did you invite them over or something?” Jack wouldn’t put it past him to do something sappy like that. Gross.

“No, but uninvited or not, they’re still our guests! And guests should _never_ be left out in the cold!” Good Jack lunged for the door, but Jack sidestepped in front of him and blocked the way.

“It’s not even that cold outside!” he protested.

Good Jack folded his arms and frowned his most disapproving frown – which was, of course, _totally_ ineffective on someone as evil and unflappable as Jack Spicer. Still, Jack knew that the guy wouldn’t let up until the situation was resolved one way or another, and so he sighed heavily and cracked open the door once more.

“What do you losers want?” he asked, silently shooing Good Jack back to the kitchen and his mountain of cookies.

Omi was still standing right in front of the door, holding a bulky, flat, rectangular package that was almost as tall as he was. He’d been leaning against the package and sullenly rubbing his nose, but when he saw Jack he straightened up a bit.

“Hello, Jack Spicer,” he said, a bit more subdued than he’d been before. “We are here to apologize for our most unmannerly behavior.” He picked up the package and tossed it into the air as if it weighed nothing, catching and balancing it on one finger.

Jack narrowed his eyes, looking from Omi to the three monks (and one dragon) standing behind him. Upon closer inspection, he realized that they were _all_ carrying packages. “Oh, come on. You can’t buy _my_ forgiveness with cheap gifts.” Actually, they totally could. But he wasn’t about to _tell_ them that.

“We’re not buying anything,” Kimiko snapped. She held up her package, which was wrapped in dark blue paper studded with silver dreidels. “These are Hanukkah presents.”

“Figured y’all could use a little holiday cheer, is all,” Clay added. He carried a small, rectangular present in his left hand, wrapped neatly in plain blue paper. 

“...Wow. That’s saccharine, even for you guys.”

“Hey, it wasn’t our idea!” Rai waved his arms around, nearly dropping the slim envelope clutched in his right hand. “Blame Dojo!”

Dojo poked his head out from behind the oversized gift basket in his arms and grinned sheepishly.

“Yeesh. Fine. Ok. Whatever. Just...” Jack made a vague gesture with one hand. “I dunno. Drop ‘em in the foyer or something. But don’t come in! I just finished cleaning up your last mess.”

“We just _said_ we were sorry,” Kimiko muttered, but followed her fellow monks up the stairs to Jack’s front door.

Clay was the first to go, and as he approached the door he raised his head and gave a small, contemplative sniff. He stopped still.

“You bakin’ something?” he asked, poking his head into the foyer. 

Jack froze, and then forced out a laugh. He stepped in front of the door to block Clay’s view of the kitchen. “Baking? Nah. Think you need to get your nose checked, cowboy. No baking here. And even if I _was_ baking something, I wouldn’t give any to _you_ losers.” He sneered. “But I’m not. So you can just go– hey!”

Clay had pushed right past him and was now standing in the middle of the foyer, looking around himself. He moved to take a step towards the kitchen and Jack darted in front of him, hands on his hips.

“What part of ‘don’t come in’ did you not get?” he demanded. Clay had the decency to look sheepish, at least.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that whatever you got cookin’ in here smells mighty fine. Guess I couldn’t help myself.”

“Yeah, well, you can help yourself right out the door.” Jack reached out and pushed at Clay’s chest; it didn’t actually do much in the way of budging him, but it was the thought that counted, right?

“Jack!”

Oh, great. Jack winced and shut his eyes, hands still braced against Clay’s chest.

“That’s no way to treat a guest!” Good Jack insisted from behind him, and Jack could _hear_ the reproachful finger-wagging in his voice.

Over Clay’s shoulder, he saw four heads pop in through the still-open door, staring at them with shock and confusion.

“Is that _Good Jack?_ ” Kimiko asked, wrinkling her nose. Next to her, Rai took a curious whiff and his eyes widened.

“Hey, Clay’s right! Something does smell good!”

The next thing Jack knew, the door had been flung wide and his foyer was _crawling_ with nosy monks (and one nosy dragon). “Whoa, whoa!” he protested, though it was pretty futile by this point. “I thought I told you losers to keep your goody-goody monk germs out of my house!”

It was too late. The entire Xiaolin contingency had already dumped their gifts in a heap by the door and disappeared into the depths of his kitchen. By the time he made it through the swinging kitchen doors, they’d already consumed half a plate of cookies, and Good Jack was standing in the middle of the kitchen wearing Mom’s oven mitts and a huge, blinding smile.

“Help yourself!” he was saying brightly. “There’s plenty for everyone!”

Jack leaned against the doorway and groaned, closing his eyes. Well, so much for a monk-free kitchen. This was officially the worst Hanukkah _ever._

Still, when the plate of cookies made another round and he found himself holding a blue-glazed menorah (and cookies were barely even a Hanukkah thing, who was Good Jack kidding?) he couldn’t really muster up the energy to kick them all out.

Besides, they’d leave on their own eventually.


End file.
